Spontaneity, Excitement, and Romance at Sea
by pure-class-princess
Summary: We all know the story of Titanic; but do we know the people on board, the promises made? There was one promise of spontaneity, excitement, and romance at sea - but will it be kept? I advise you watch Fellowes' Titanic first, Annie/Paolo after the last ep.


**So, **_**Julian Fellowes' 'Titanic' (TV Series, 2012)**_** fanfics! Yay! So, though I can expect the most popular will be Harry/Georgiana, I have done Annie/Paolo – it was such an awful ending and they needed something! Bless them both, from the London girl to the Italian boy.**

**Oh, and if I got the fifth officer's line wrong at the start (when he brought the search lifeboat back) please say. Thank you and enjoy; maybe review as this is, quite literally, the first of its kind. **

**And for **_**Downton**_** fans, Maggie Smith is NOT retiring from DA (according to their official twitter, DowntonAbbey). OK, done.**

**-pureclass**

Mid-Atlantic Ocean, 0230 April 15th 1912

"_We only picked up three; one died and another might not make it… Did you know him well, madam?"_

"_I was going to marry him; I just hope to God he knew it."_

"Mr Sandrini! Mr Sandrini!" She was calling to a man she vaguely knew; an Italian she heard talking with Lightoller and recognised at once. He turned to his name, but replied before he saw her.

"Miss Desmond!"

"They found Paolo!"

"Paolo?" he was so pleased – his little brother had saved his own life and he loved him – but also suspicious, wouldn't Paolo have more immediately called out himself? "Where is he?"

She began weeping. "He, he died, before," she stumbled, and then spoke quickly, "He died before he got to me." She nearly choked on the words and her head sunk to her lap, she was crying audibly. The mid-Atlantic night was filled with silence.

"Paolo?" Mario was gut-wrenchingly heartbroken and clumsily clambered over the side of the lifeboat, so fell next to where Annie was sat. She looked to her left, where he had landed, then turned her head to the right. Mario looked over her to the body of his baby brother, scarpering behind her to hold him; her eyes flickered to follow the movement. "Paolo!" he kept crying, "Paolo! No!"

The American lady she recognised from somewhere looked over then, from the next boat behind.

"Here," she offered, passing over a slightly full bottle of liquor, "its brandy. See if he might make it." Her eyes gestured to Paolo. Annie looked weary. He was dead, the fifth officer had told her that much himself, but anything could be worth a shot she supposed. This lady smiled at her shortly, an apologetic flash.

"Mr Sandrini," she tried, but the stoker by now had begun slapping his brother about the face, cursing in Italian and calling out for Paolo to live, to face it like a man. The little Italian she knew let her understand his words so she, in his language, took on an imperative tone and demanded he stop hurting his brother further at once.

Everyone within earshot turned to look upon her rapidly reddening features and, besides the bitter moan of the ocean, the new morning turned deathly silent. She looked down to hide her embarrassment and her eyes fell on the bottle.

"Mr Sandrini," she began again, calm, but paused here then continued in the secret language, as some eyes were still on her, stealing quick glances and hoping she wouldn't notice, "Mr Sandrini, there is some brandy here. It is not much but could help him." Her knowledge allowed her that, short and to-the-point, and he took the bottle.

It was freezing out so his hands shook as he opened the bottle and pressed it to the younger man's lips, "Paolo" he begged all the while. What was that prayer the second officer had said before? He did not remember, but the brandy was soon dry. "Paolo!" he continued, and the girl began crying into her bare hands again. He passed the bottle back to her, and she proceeded to attempt to pass it to someone behind who had taken an interest in the situation, but who also pressed the bottle firmly back into her hands and nodded, wearing that sympathetic smile again.

Something passed between the women and she smiled back, and looked to her hands holding the bottle. Then, she looked back to the supposéd corpse. She fell to her knees by his side suddenly and started thumping his chest, calling in Italian to the heavens "Why, Paolo, why?" crying all the while for only a few moments before water came pouring from his mouth and she leant over him, resigned, and began crying once more. For surely she could weep tears enough to sink the Titanic all over again.

"Wait!" a man from the boat Lightoller and Mr Sandrini arrived on requested, "That is a good sign."

"It is?" she asked back, dumbfounded and holding short her breath, not getting her hopes up.

"Yes, beggar's belief but I'm a doctor, madam. He's got water in his lungs but his heart'll work, I'll bet!" As he spoke, he became more enthusiastic and nearly skipped over the boats' edges, landing on the other side of the nearly deceased. He began pumping the man's chest, quickly and forcefully. It was a sad effort, water pouring out but some draining back in, until Annie passionately thrust the empty bottle onto his skull.

She didn't know what had driven her to smash him round the head with a hard glass bottle – especially after what she'd delivered his brother – but he almost immediately spluttered back to life, coughing up the remaining water as he did so.

"Annie?" he winced not at the still potent darkness, but at the beaming faces gawping over his, "Mario?" By now many more than the stoker, maid, American and doctor had gathered round the miracle – the second officer emigrating from the collapsible now vacated to join the one which had gone out to search and rescue.

"Mr Sandrini, are you with us again?"

"Yes, second officer," he murmured, "I believe I am in good hands." He looked from Lightoller's concerned grimace to the beautiful big bright smile, one to provide light in this perpetual doom, which still looked at him.

She daren't remove her eyes from his face, lest he evaporate or disappear – or, God forbid, it be a dream. When the call first came she was running round the second class corridors with Paolo, chuckling like naughty schoolchildren, and she had wished it were a dream. She'd worked the White Star Line for years now – yet his career had just begun – why should they be dealt this hand? Now she wished it weren't. Oh, the emotional journey she had experienced this last few days was enough for one young woman, she thought, to last a lifetime, but it would be such a thrilling life to have that every day. That's what Paolo could promise her; spontaneity, excitement, and romance on the sea.

"Annie." He said again, slowly. He most certainly could not be expected to have returned entirely to his former self in just a matter of minutes, and could choose no better sight to glance upon as he did. That smile, those eyes – surely she must love him? And Italian, she speaks Italian. And didn't they have fun? Times she'd overlooked his misdemeanours when no-one else was around, when they'd walked the deck together, when she'd fitted his suit coat sleeves?

"Hum." A rough clearing of the throat alerted them both back from staring into each other – for surely it was more than each other's eyes they were staring into – and back to the cold late winter night. Dawn would soon be gathering on the horizon, but another light reached them first.

A flare? No, they had passed; this was a consistent beam – a foghorn light, searching. And then a foghorn itself was sounding loudly behind them, and a following of hundreds of cheers. How many people had survived? She suddenly wondered – it hadn't seemed that many when she was watching, and there seemed to be so many more jumping from the fourteen decks as the waves cascaded over the vessel before swallowing it more or less whole; having bitten it in two and taken the larger half first, leaving the remainder and teasing it for what seemed like an eternity before slowly ingesting it, short end first, bit by bit until the entire beast was safely discarded somewhere deep below where they sailed now – how long would it take, or had it taken, for the rapidly disassembling liner to hit the ocean floor? They hadn't yet felt any tremor from beneath, or had they simply been ignorant? They wouldn't know now, anyway; a ship had come to save them.

He woke startled from his reverie by a light that could not be the sun, or her smile, blinding him, right side first; then a noise to match this flood from the same direction. Someone gruff, a man, had coughed not moments before and he felt inclined to, at the same time as her, turn his head towards this other grand ship – he could not get unlucky thrice, or even four times, and would now make it to New York. To New York _"You can kiss me in New York."_ Had been her parting words, when he sent her off on the lifeboat before he went to rescue the Italians, - and a promise that they would meet again.

Tearing her eyes from his reluctantly, though it felt necessary, she smiled again when a seaman waved his hat at the array of survivors sailing the still sea. She looked down then, from the sea deck to an object floating not far off and chuckled. How ironic, taken their situation, that she could say the next words, "It's my suitcase!" she shouted, for the benefit of only the Sandrini brothers, "My case, just there, starboard!" she was still giggling as Mario followed her instructions, playing along that her small possessions were still important with a grin on his face – one that when she looked down she noticed matched Paolo's. As it was fetched and lumped onto the scarcely occupied lifeboat she remembered something she needed to tell the poor man, nearly drowned, still lying on the wooden floor himself. "Yes."

"Hmm?" he seemed confused, she'd just pointed out her suitcase (though one wonders how something from F deck just above steerage had survived and made it to the surface – but the rooms down there were not locked, he remembered, except one) and now very romantically searched deep within him through their eyes and said 'yes' – was it an agreement, an answer? _"And, yes, he has asked me but, no, I haven't answered him yet." _That's what she'd told his brother not hours ago – was this it now. He supposed confusion had dominated his face for a moment until realisation struck him dumb –quite literally – and he broke into this wide grin he was sure he would be able to erase until they got to New York.

"And you can kiss me when we get to New York." She confirmed, beautifully smiling broadly herself.

"Miss Desmond, Mr Sandrini, do you want to get to New York!" Lightoller ruined their moment – or had it ended? He couldn't say – but they noticed they were truly alone on the water now, all others had climbed aboard. The second officer had his arm outstretched to help them up and Mario was waiting, smiling kindly at the pair, from where he had just embarked himself. He would have to leave the entrance passage for them to board and did so just as soon as Annie ripped her gaze from Paolo like a plaster – quickly was least painful –, hauled up one side of her skirts and used her other arm to, in order to join the other guests, cling to the arm of this man she had not long ago been taking orders from; though all their means of employment was now, well and truly, history.

**So, okay, the second officer **_**is**_** Charles Lightoller in case that confused you. Do you like it? If you did – or if you didn't – please review. Oh, besides this last sentence there is the same number of words as the year I was born; guess it?**


End file.
